Hunger Pains
by fairytaleslayer
Summary: Emma has an interesting relationship with food. Of course, that's not surprising when one grows up never knowing when they'll get their next meal.


**A/N: I don't even know what this is. But Jennifer Morrison spoke recently about Emma's relationship with food, and then some people on Tumblr made some gifsets, and this came out. I couldn't help it. Sorry!  
Also, could be slight trigger warnings? Just mentions of child abuse and obviously missed meals, and I don't know how sensitive people are to that? So if you are, avoid this.**

* * *

Hunger Pains

Emma Swan thrust her hands against the trunk of the car, trying desperately to pry the lid up. Her stomach hurt – it felt like it was gnawing on her insides, eating anything that got in its way. Her foster mother had put her in the trunk for accidentally dropping a plate on the floor and breaking it. She was only eight – she couldn't reach the shelf the plates went on. But Mrs. Tyler had told her to put the dishes away, so Emma tried.

And now she didn't know how long she had been in the car. Probably long enough to miss at least two meals, so almost a day. Emma had gotten pretty good over the years at guessing how long she'd gone without food. Some houses were nice, and she got cereal for breakfast, and lunch at school, and dinner regularly, but Emma had learned early on to never count on that.

So now she focused on attempting to spring open the trunk so she could sneak into the house and to her bed. She had some crackers hidden between the mattress and the wall that she'd put there a week ago. Mrs. Tyler had been drunk early; she wouldn't even notice if Emma had escaped by morning.

Suddenly, there was a scuffling outside the car, gravel rolling across the ground. Emma scooted to the back of the trunk, hoping to avoid another slap if Mrs. Tyler was still angry. "Emma?" a young voice whispered quietly. "Emma, are you in there?"

"Kyle!" Emma moved back to the front. "Kyle!"

A key scraped against the lock of the trunk, and then it popped open. A dark hand reached in to help Emma out. "Mrs. Tyler passed out an hour ago," Kyle muttered. "I waited to make sure she wouldn't wake up before I came out here."

"How did you get the keys?" Emma asked him as they quietly made their way to the back door of the house.

The ten year old held up the ring of keys proudly. "Picked her pocket," he bragged. "She was so drunk, she'll just see 'em on the table in the morning and think she left 'em there."

Emma grinned. "Nice," she complimented. The two kids crept into the house and up the stairs to the bedroom they shared. Two other kids slept in a room down the hall.

"Oh." Kyle thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a greasy looking piece of paper when they got to their room and shut the door, now relatively safe for the night. "I saved this for you. I snuck it out of the fridge before she padlocked it for the evening." He unwrapped the piece of paper, revealing a medium-sized bit of chicken. "It was all I could get without her noticing that anything was missing."

Emma took the food reverently. "Thanks," she whispered. She turned to go to her bed, but hesitated. After a minute of agonized thought, she turned back. "Wait a second," she said, handing the food back to Kyle. She jumped on her bed and dug her hand in between her bed and the wall, searching for the half a sleeve of crackers she'd stashed. Triumphant, she took them over to Kyle's bed, plopping down on his mattress.

Kyle stared at the crackers. "Where'd you get those?" he asked in awe.

Emma grinned. "Filched them a week ago,"she admitted. She paused, but went on. "We can – you know, share it. You saved me."

Kyle smiled back. "Awesome."

That night, the two kids went to bed nearly full for the first time in a week.

* * *

Emma was hungry. Her current foster parents were okay, but sometimes, when they were too high, they forgot that growing eleven year olds needed to eat.

At least they didn't hit her. When they were sober enough to remember to buy food, Emma ate pretty regularly. Unfortunately, they weren't sober very often. And when they were high, they didn't know to get Emma up for school, as she didn't have an alarm clock. And if she missed the bus, then she didn't get lunch either.

Other than that, the Cunninghams were the best foster parents she'd had in a while. As long as they didn't notice that she filched money to buy food. They'd caught her once, and had locked Emma in her room for three days. She couldn't remember ever being that thirsty. Even before, when she'd gone hungry, she always had access to water at least. Emma decided after that, that thirst was much worse than hunger. You could trick yourself into thinking you weren't hungry, but you couldn't drive away thirst.

But when the adults had been on another bender for a couple of days, Emma took the chance and stole a few dollars from each of their wallets before running down to the drug store down the block to buy a few things to hide and eat in her room. She tried to remember what she'd learned in some of her school's health talks about what kinds of foods she was supposed to eat, but with six dollars and thirty-four cents, there was no way she could cover all the food groups.

So Emma bought packaged things that she made sure had some kind of protein in it, because she knew that that kind of food stayed in her belly the longest. And she tried to pile extra green things on her tray at school, because those had healthy things in them that she couldn't get in things that came in a package because they weren't green. Except green Jell-O. That didn't count. The lunch ladies at school loved her – always acted so proud that she ate so many vegetables when other kids threw them away.

* * *

Emma thought being fourteen sucked. Like big time. It meant that she was too young to take care of herself, but old enough to feel the need to protect the kids younger than her. Too often, she found herself stepping in the way of a slap or hit heading towards one of the seven year olds, or sneaking food off her plate and into the napkin on her lap to give to the three little ones later.

Emma knew what it was like to have been them. Some of the older foster kids had looked out for her over the years, and now it was her turn to do the same. Unfortunately, that meant that she often went to bed with a growling stomach not happy with her still growing body. Emma had read about it – how her body needed extra energy so her bones and muscles could get bigger, so she needed to eat more food. She just wished it would stop so that she could eat less and not have her stomach ache all the time.

She had been with this family for too long. Almost a year now. Normally, Emma would have kicked up a fuss to her social worker before then about the lack of food or the hitting, but now she felt the urge to protect the three little kids who slept in the same room as her. The twins were only seven, and the youngest kid was four. She often woke up in the middle of the night with at least two of them snuggled up against her, most of the time all three.

Emma didn't want to think about what would happen if she left them unprotected. What if Mr. Timmen aimed a hit at little Jamie, and Emma hadn't been there to stop it? Or one of Ashley's tricks was one too many for Mrs. Timmen, and she locked Ash in the bathroom for two days again?

No. Emma had to stay put. At least for now. Keep the other three away from their foster parents as much as possible, and if the little tykes going to bed with food in their stomachs meant she went hungry most nights, then she would have to do that too. If Emma left, they all left. It couldn't happen any other way.

* * *

Sixteen year old Emma watched other kids at her high school throw away half of the food on their trays, complaining about how gross it was, while she, on the other hand, ate every speck that she could find. Didn't they know that any meal could be their last? How could they be so complacent as to be sure that they had food enough to throw away the extra?

Emma couldn't understand it. Sure, things were okay at the house she was at right now, but that could change in a second. She got lunch at school, and maybe she was on her own for breakfast and dinner most days since her foster parents were always working, but at least the fridge was only padlocked at night after they got home, so she got just about three meals every day. Sometimes, she even got a snack after school. That was a completely new occurrence for Emma.

And here were other kids her age, just dumping the food in the trash. Part of Emma wanted to call out to them, to tell them she'd eat it, that they didn't have to waste it. But the cautious part of her warned her not to stand out. To not let them see that she was different. That was just asking for trouble. Plus, Emma was just too proud to beg for the scraps of more fortunate kids. She could take care of herself.

And she did. Emma practically made a living off of filching from other students. Money from wallets in unlocked PE lockers, jewelry set aside as other girls showered that she could pawn, all the cashS hoarded and used to buy food that she hid in her backpack and smuggled to her room to eat late at night after the Smiths had gone to sleep. She was pretty good at it too – hadn't been caught yet.

But despite all that, watching those kids throw away perfectly good food just irked her, and she got the feeling that it always would.

* * *

The first paycheck that Emma had that didn't have to immediately go to pay for rent on the tiny one-room apartment that she had gotten in Boston went all to food. She staggered home, multiple bags hanging off each arm, and put it all in the refrigerator.

When it was organized, Emma just sat on the floor and stared at the shelves for a full five minutes, the fridge door hanging open and letting all the cool air out. But she didn't care. In all the houses she'd been placed in in the last twenty-two years, she had never seen that much food at once. And it was all hers. No adults, no other kids to look after (she felt a pang at the thought of her little boy, and she prayed that he had plenty of food, wherever he was), and no padlock. She could eat what she wanted, when she wanted it.

It was almost too much for Emma. She barely touched it that first night, not quite knowing how to handle having that large of an amount of food. She didn't know what to eat first. Maybe something that could spoil easily? But what was that? Probably fruits and vegetables. She'd made sure to buy some of those. She was pretty fond of apples – and carrots. Those were good. She had discovered over the years that she liked crunchy foods. There was something about the fact that she could hear herself take a bite out of her food that assured Emma that the food was real.

She'd also bought hot chocolate. She had only drunk it a few times since she'd first tried it when she was thirteen. She had stayed with an older lady for a few months – a nice lady who'd fed her a lot before she got sick and couldn't take care of Emma any more. Emma didn't know what had happened to her after that. But Mrs. Langley had introduced her to hot chocolate, a fact Emma would be grateful to her for the rest of her life. Because she loved it. Absolutely. Especially with cinnamon, which she'd discovered by chance a year ago when she accidentally dumped some into her mug at a restaurant. Now she couldn't drink a cup without the spice in it.

As she nursed a serving of it that night, she idly wondered if Kyler liked hot chocolate with cinnamon, too. She may not have been able to look at her kid when she'd given birth to him, but there had been a time early on in her pregnancy when she had thought about keeping him. She'd gotten as far as picking a name out for him before a prison nurse had convinced her that the State would never allow a teenaged criminal, just out of jail, custody of her kid.

So she had given Kyler up. Emma didn't let herself think about him often, but sometimes, she wondered. He would be just over four now. And part of her hoped that maybe they had this in common. Just this one tiny little thing that connected her to just one other person on this Earth.

* * *

Storybrooke was weird. That was all Emma had to say about the tiny little town in Maine that Henry (_That's not his name,_ part of her cried out) had brought her to. What with Henry following her around, his adoptive mother, the _Mayor_, out for her blood, a strangely good looking sheriff offering her a job, and the kind but naive school teacher who gave her a place to stay no questions asked, Emma didn't quite know what to make of it.

But if Graham brought her a bear claw, she certainly wasn't going to complain. She had a weakness for them. And Henry _did_ like cinnamon with his hot chocolate, a fact that would have made Emma cry, if she did that kind of thing anymore. And Mary Margaret made her food while she was working, leaving it covered in the fridge for when she got home late. Or she made Emma breakfast in the mornings while she unpacked her small number of boxes shipped from Boston or was just generally running late to the station.

For the first time in her life, Emma ate three meals a day on a daily basis. She'd often missed a meal or two while chasing a runner for her bounty hunting job, and while it hadn't been a big deal and she could and did easily handle it, it was really great to never have a growling stomach.

She was glad Henry decided that Granny's Diner should be their base of operations for his Operation Cobra. It meant she always got to eat, and more importantly, Henry ate too and got hot chocolate. As much as she loathed Regina for what she was trying to do to her and what the Mayor had done in the past to Henry and how she'd made him feel, Emma was grateful that Henry had never gone hungry a day in his life. He'd always had enough. She could try to make up for a lot of things she'd messed up by giving him away, but the one thing Emma couldn't replace were missed meals.

* * *

The Enchanted Forest sucked. It was worse than Dallas, worse than Phoenix, _much_ worse than Tallahassee. There were fairytale people running around, and people camping in the forest, and they'd thrown her and Mary Margaret – Snow White (_Mom_?) - into a hole in the ground overnight.

For the first time in weeks, Emma went to bed with a growling stomach.

When Lancelot – she wasn't even going _near_ that can of worms – had apologized for the mistake and invited them to eat with him, Emma wasted no time putting food on her plate. She had not enjoyed her re-introduction to hunger. So even though the only food she recognized on the table were the grapes, she filled her plate and tucked in while Lancelot and Mary Margaret discussed strategies and news of the realm. The chimera/turducken wasn't half bad, as long as she stayed away from the snake part.

When she and Mary Margaret had finally managed to get back to Storybrooke and civilization, Emma slept like the dead that night, Henry snuggled up to her side. The next morning, she quietly crept out of bed, not wanting to wake him, and snuck down to have some real breakfast.

Eventually, Mary Margaret and David joined her as she began her third bowl of cereal, and when Henry stumbled down the stairs fifteen minutes later, Emma quickly placed a bowl in front of him and waited for him to start eating before she went back to her own. She had not liked her trip to the Enchanted Forest at all, nor the trip down memory lane it had brought.

* * *

When she and Henry moved to New York and their new apartment after the one in Boston burned down, they quickly settled into a routine. Every morning, Emma made breakfast as Henry got ready for school. She could clearly remember the hard several years after making the decision to keep Henry and getting out of prison. She had often gone hungry, saving her meals for Henry to eat, making damn well sure he was always full, only eating when he was done. As he got older, Henry started to catch on to it, and Emma had to play it more carefully so that he didn't pretend to be full to save extra food for her.

Emma had won the lotto with her son. She couldn't believe she had almost given him up without fighting for him. Sure, it had been hard for a long time, but when she'd gotten into bounty hunting, things smoothed out. Henry gave her something to look forward to when she got home from work, something to be excited about.

The first time they had had extra money after the move, she'd taken him to see a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. Watching him cheer on whichever team was up to bat as he scarfed down the huge hot dog she'd bought him, the years of foster care seemed so very far away to Emma. If all of that, all the hardship, the abuse, the missed meals, had led her to enjoying an afternoon with her beautiful boy at a baseball game, Emma couldn't see how she could feel any anger about her past. Maybe it was time to just let go of it, and look toward the future instead. One that from where she was sitting, looked pretty great.

* * *

Killian stayed silent the entire time Emma spoke. The night before, she had asked him about his childhood, wanting to know about where he'd lived, Liam, his career in the Navy. Three hundred and more years was a long time to think back on, but Killian talked for a long time, speaking about his early days with his mother and sometimes his father. How after the death of his mother, his father had promised to take him sailing and explore the world, but had instead abandoned him in the port Capital of his realm.

Killian spoke briefly about his almost full year of living on the streets, stealing and scrapping for food, glossing over those hard times to the morning where Liam had come looking for him and found him by the docks after searching all night. He smiled fondly as he remembered how Liam had begged his Captain at the time to take Killian on as a cabin boy, which the officer had finally agreed to.

As he spoke of his time of homelessness, he saw a flash of something in Emma's eyes. Recognition perhaps, but she soon covered it up. He let it go silently, but made a mental note to ask her about it when he was done.

Late that night, when Emma's curiosity had finally been sated, and they were curled up together in their bed in Emma's new apartment, Killian brought it up.

"Not tonight," Emma had whispered, tightening her grip on his arm around her waist. "Ask me in the morning. Tonight was about you." Killian had agreed easily. Emma had been doing remarkably well lately with opening up to him. He had waited so long to be able to get to know her, waiting one night while holding her in his arms would be no trial. Besides, she was an open book to him, as he was to her. He was fairly certain he had an idea of the familiarity that had crossed her mind as he spoke.

And he was right. What he hadn't expected was the true extent of the tale she'd told as they lay in bed the next morning. The constant uncertainty, the fear, the pain – Killian's heart went out to the little lost girl that Emma had been, and was amazed yet again at the strong woman who had made it out the other side despite it all.

A tear slipped down her cheek as she spoke of her inability to keep the son she'd named Kyler, and Killian gently wiped it away before tucking her head under his chin. Emma described the rest of her past, including the fake memories that Regina had given her, from the safety of his chest as he stroked his hand through her hair, something that always calmed her.

But what blew him away was Emma's recount of her day at the ballpark – he made another mental to note to ask her what that was later – with Henry. Her ability to, if not forgive, at least let go of the past that had treated her so unfairly.

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me, or for the girl I was, Killian," Emma murmured, interrupting his thoughts. "What I had to realize again was the same thing I thought I discovered at the stadium that day in New York. That all of it was worth it. Doubly so now, because not only do I have Henry, I have you." She leaned up on her elbows to get a look at him. "It all applies to you, too. If everything in my past – foster care, Neal, prison, going hungry – every horrible thing that happened to me in the twenty-eight years before I came to Storybrooke led me to you? Then I wouldn't change a second of it."

Killian didn't have any answer to that but to kiss her. Because he felt exactly the same way.


End file.
